The Magic Kingdom of Landover , Volume 1 (23 page)

“He may wear it, but it does him little good!” The red-bearded Lord had his eyes fixed on Ben. The shouts from the others continued. Kallendbor played to them, his voice rising. “He does not command the Paladin, does he? He has no champion to fight for him against man or demon! He has no one but you, Questor Thews. You had best come and get him now!”

“I need no one to stand up for me!” Ben stepped between Kallendbor and the approaching wizard. “I can stand for myself against anyone!”

The instant he had said it he wished that he hadn’t. The room went still. He saw the smile come immediately to Kallendbor’s hard face, the glint to his eye. “Would you care to test your strength against mine, High Lord?” the other asked softly.

Ben felt the dampness of sweat beneath his arms and along the crease of his back. He recognized the trap he had stepped into, but there seemed no way out of it now. “A test of strength seldom proves anything, Lord Kallendbor,” he replied, his gaze kept steady on the other.

Kallendbor’s smile turned unpleasant. “I would expect a man who relies solely on laws for his protection to say that.”

Anger flooded through Ben. “Very well. How would you suggest that I test my strength against yours?”

“High Lord, you cannot allow …” Questor began, but was silenced by the shouts of the others gathered about the table.

Kallendbor rubbed his bearded face slowly, considering. “Well, now, there are any number of possibilities, all of them …”

He was cut short by a sharp bark from the far end of the table. It was Abernathy who, in his excitement to be heard, had lapsed back momentarily into the form of communication basic to this breed. “Forgive me,” he said quickly as the snickers began to rise. “Lord Kallendbor, you seem to have forgotten the etiquette this situation demands. You were the one to issue the challenge to a contest. It is your opponent’s right, therefore, to select the game.”

Kallendbor frowned. “I assumed that because he was from another world he did not know the games of this one.”

“He need only know a variation of them,” Abernathy replied, peering at the other over his glasses. “Excuse me for one moment, please.”

He left the table walking upright, head erect. Veiled laughter rose from the gathered Lords as the dog left the room. Ben glanced quickly at Questor, who shrugged and shook his head. The wizard had no idea what the scribe was about either.

A few moments later, Abernathy was back. He carried in his hands two pairs of eight ounce boxing gloves—the ones that Ben had brought with him into Landover to keep in training. “Fisticuffs, Lord Kallendbor,” the soft-coated Wheaten Terrier announced.

Kallendbor threw back his head and laughed. “Fisticuffs? With those? I would prefer bare knuckles to leather socks filled with stuffing!”

Abernathy brought the gloves about the table to where the combatants stood. “High Lord,” he bowed deeply, his soft eyes on Ben. “Perhaps it would be best if you forgave Lord Kallendbor his rash challenge. It would not do to see him injured because of his inability to master your weapons.”

“No! I do not withdraw the challenge!” Kallendbor snatched one pair of gloves from the scribe and began to pull them on. Strehan turned to help him.

Abernathy passed the second pair to Ben. “He is very strong, High Lord. Watch yourself.”

“I thought that you knew nothing of boxing,” Ben whispered, working one
glove on. Questor appeared at his side, helping him tighten the laces. “How did you know to find these?”

“I was responsible for the unpacking of your possessions when you arrived at Sterling Silver,” Abernathy answered, giving Ben what might have been a smile coming from anyone else. “These gloves were there along with a magazine that demonstrated your game. I studied the pictures and drawings in the magazine. Our games are much the same. You call yours boxing. We call ours fisticuffs.”

“I’ll be damned!” Ben breathed.

Kallendbor had his gloves in place and was stripped to the waist. Ben glanced past Questor as he worked. Kallendbor’s chest and arms rippled with muscle, and scars from battle wounds crisscrossed his body. He looked like a gladiator from the cast of
Spartacus
.

A space was being cleared at the center of the room, ringed by thralls in service to the castle proper and by the other Lords of the Greensward. The space was a little more than twice the size of a normal boxing ring.

“Any rules to this game?” Ben asked, taking deep breaths to calm himself.

Questor nodded. “Just one. Whoever is still standing at the end of the fight is the winner.”

Ben slapped his gloves together to test the tightness of the laces and shrugged the tunic from his back. “That’s it, huh? I guess I won’t have any trouble remembering, will I?”

He went around the dinner table and into the makeshift ring. Kallendbor was waiting. Ben stopped momentarily at the edge of the crowd; Questor, Abernathy, and the two kobolds crowded in close beside him.

“So much for the lawyer’s approach to things,” he sighed.

“I will look after you, High Lord,” Questor whispered hurriedly.

Ben turned. “No magic, Questor.”

“But, High Lord, you cannot …”

“No magic. That’s final.”

The wizard grimaced and nodded reluctantly. “The medallion will protect you anyway,” he muttered. But he did not sound all that sure that it would.

Ben shrugged the matter aside and stepped out into the ring. Kallendbor came at him at once, hands cocked, arms spread wide as if he intended to grapple. Ben hit him once with the left jab and sidestepped. The big man turned, grunting, and Ben hit him again, once, twice, a third time. The jabs were sharp and quick, snapping Kallendbor’s head back. Ben danced away, moving smoothly, feeling the adrenaline begin to flow through his body. Kallendbor roared with fury and came at him with both arms flailing. Ben ducked, caught the blows on his arms and shoulders, then burrowed into the other’s body with a flurry of quick punches, stepped away, jabbed and caught Kallendbor flush on the jaw with a full right hook.

Kallendbor went straight to the floor, a dazed look on his face. Ben danced away. He could hear Questor yelling encouragement. He could hear the oaths and shouts of the Lords of the Greensward. The blood pumped through him, and it seemed to him that he could hear the sound of his heartbeat throbbing in his ears.

Kallendbor climbed slowly back to his feet, eyes glinting with fury. He was as strong as Abernathy had warned. He would not be taken out easily.

He came at Ben once more, cautiously this time, fists held protectively before his face. The fighters feinted and jabbed, circling. Kallendbor’s bearded face was flushed and angry. He pushed his gloves into Ben’s, knocking them back, looking for an opening.

Then, suddenly, he charged. He was quick, and he caught Ben off balance with his rush. The blows rained into Ben, thrusting through his guard, catching him in the face. Ben danced away, his own fists jabbing back. But Kallendbor never slowed. He bore into Ben like a juggernaut, knocking him to the floor. Ben struggled back to his feet, but Kallendbor’s wild blows caught him twice on the side of the head and down he went again.

The shouts of the Lords of the Greensward became a roar in Ben’s ears, and there were colored lights dancing before his eyes. Kallendbor was standing over him, hitting at him with both hands, the smell of his sweat heavy in the air. Ben rolled away, careening into the ring of onlookers. Hands shoved him back. Kallendbor’s boots and knees struck out at him, and he felt the pain of the blows lance through his body. He curled into a ball, his gloves tight against his face, his forearms against his chest.

He could feel the medallion he wore about his neck pressed against him.

The pain was becoming unbearable. He knew he was going to lose consciousness if he did not do something quickly. He rolled to his knees, bracing. When Kallendbor rushed at him again, he grappled desperately at the other’s legs, pulled him off balance and tumbled him to the floor.

Ben came back to his feet at once, shaking the dizziness from his head, gloves cocked before his face. Kallendbor was up as well, his breath hissing from between his teeth. A strange light had appeared from behind the big man and the crowd of onlookers. It was a light that seemed to be growing brighter. Ben shook his head, trying to concentrate on the advancing Kallendbor. But now others were aware of the light as well. Heads had begun to turn and the crowd to part as the light advanced toward them. There was a figure within the light, a knight in battered, worn armor, helmet visor closed.

There was an audible gasp from the crowd of Lords and thralls.

The knight was the Paladin.

The assemblage stared, murmurs rippling through the sudden silence as the figure shimmered in the light. Some dropped to their knees, crying out in the same manner as had the demons when the Paladin had appeared to them
in the Heart. Kallendbor stood uncertainly at the center of the circle, hands lowered, eyes turned away now from Ben to view the specter.

The Paladin shimmered a moment longer in the light, and then he faded back again and was gone. The light died away into evening dark.

Kallendbor wheeled at once on Ben. “What trickery is this, play-King? Why do you bring that ghost into Rhyndweir?”

Ben shook his head angrily. “I brought nothing but …”

Questor cut the rest of what he was going to say short. “Lord Kallendbor, you mistake what has happened here. Twice before, the Paladin has appeared when the High Lord’s safety was threatened. You are being warned, Lords of the Greensward, that this man, Ben Holiday, is the true King of Landover!”

“We are warned by a ghost in a light?” Kallendbor laughed, spitting blood from his cracked lips. “You have used your magic to try to frighten us, Questor Thews, and you have failed!”

He looked at Ben with disdain. “This game is finished. I want no more of you or your traveling circus. I want no part of you as my King!”

The shouts of the other Lords echoed his declaration. Ben stood where he was. “Whether you want any part of me or not, I am King nevertheless!” he snapped. “You may ignore me as you would ignore any truth, but I will remain a fact of your life! You think to ignore the laws that made me King, Kallendbor, but you will not be able to do so forever! I will find a way to see that you cannot!”

“You need not look far, play-King!” Kallendbor was beside himself with fury. He shrugged out of the boxing gloves and threw them at Ben. “You claim to be King of Landover? You claim to command the services of the Paladin? Very well, prove that you truly are what you claim by ridding us of the one plague on our existence that we cannot ourselves dismiss! Rid us of Strabo! Rid us of the dragon!”

He stalked forward until he was almost on top of Ben. “Twenty years now the dragon has raided our stock and destroyed our property. We have hunted him from one end of Landover to the other, but he has the magic of the old world and we cannot kill him. You are heir to the old magic, too—if you are who you claim! So rid us of the dragon, play-King, and then I will bow to you as High Lord and pledge you my life!”

A roar of approval rose from the throats of all assembled. “Rid us of the dragon!” they cried as one. Ben’s eyes remained locked on Kallendbor’s.

“Until then, I will ignore you as I would ignore the ants that crawl beneath my feet!” Kallendbor whispered in his face.

He wheeled and stalked from the circle, the other Lords following after. Slowly, the room began to empty. Ben was left alone with Questor, Abernathy, and the kobolds. The four came forward to remove his gloves and to clean the blood and sweat from his face and body.

“What’s all this about the dragon?” Ben demanded immediately.

“Later, High Lord,” Questor answered, dabbing at a mouse already beginning to form under one eye. “A bath and a night’s sleep are in order first.”

Ben shook his head. “Not in this place! I wouldn’t spend another moment here if it meant hiking out across a damn desert! Pack everything. We’re leaving right now. We’ll talk about the dragon on the way.”

“But, High Lord …”

“Now, Questor!”

No one chose to argue the point further. An hour later their little company was back on the road traveling west out of Rhyndweir into the night.

WILLOW

B
en’s decision to leave Rhyndweir so abruptly proved to be a poor one. The company had barely cleared the outskirts of the village shops and cottages lining the castle’s approach when it began to rain. The rain came slowly at first, a spattering of drops against their faces, light and teasing. Then the drops became a shower, and the shower became a downpour. Clouds blocked away the land’s moons and the distant stars, and everything turned as black as pitch. Wind howled across the flat, empty pastures and fields of the Greensward, thrusting at the travelers like a giant’s breath. It took only moments for the company to decide to seek immediate shelter, but they were already soaked to the bone by then.

They spent the night in a dilapidated, empty barn in which stock had once been housed. Rain blew through holes in the walls and roofing, and there were few dry spots to be found. The air turned chill, and the damp clothing seemed colder than before. Ben and his companions huddled together in the dark in a large horse stall at one end of the barn. It was dryer there than anywhere else in the building, and there was straw on which to bed. A fire was out of the question, so everyone had to make do with a quick change of clothing and a sharing of the blankets from their bedding. Questor offered to try his magic on a flameless warming device he had once successfully conjured up, but Ben would not allow it. Questor’s magic evidenced an unpleasant propensity for backfiring, and their barn was the only shelter in sight. Besides, Ben reasoned obstinately, weathering out the storm in such poor surroundings seemed appropriate punishment for the way he had botched things at Rhyndweir.